For years, the MAGA universe has treated ABC’s “The View” as the ultimate cultural bogeyman — a daytime coven of out-of-touch liberal media elites, political hacks, and, in the infamous framing of Vice President JD Vance, the epicenter of the “childless cat lady” ethos. President Donald Trump has routinely denigrated its hosts as “degenerates” and “dumb women,” while his regulatory henchmen, including FCC Chair Brendan Carr, have weaponized state pressure, threatening the show’s equal-time exemptions in an overt attack on the free press. Yet, there was Vance on Tuesday, pulling up a chair at the iconic hexagonal table to hawk his book, burnish his credentials as the heir apparent to the MAGA throne and attempt a high-stakes political rebrand.
Ostensibly, Vance’s appearance was part of a promotional tour for his new memoir, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith,” which, as Amanda Marcotte explains for Salon, is already a flop. But instead of a triumphant crossover breakthrough, his time on “The View” exposed the massive, fatal flaw at the center of his political identity.
